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BT hit with a £300m compensation and £42m fine

Ofcom has criticised BT for cutting compensation payments to the telecoms providers when Openreach services were delivered late.

BT has recently been hit with a £42m fine and alongside this they have been ordered to pay around £300m in compensation since lowering the penalty payments to other telecoms providers.

During an investigation completed by the regulator Ofcom, they found that between January 2013 and December 2014, BT had “misused terms of its contracts” to lower the payments made when it failed to complete their Ethernet services and installations on time.

This record fine comes after BT had agreed to spin out Openreach into a separate business earlier in the month, due to the mounting pressure from MPs and telecoms providers, one company mentioned that they are not surprised about the fine, due to Openreach’ s habit of “moving goalposts” when it all comes down to compensation.

In addition to their £42m fine and the estimated £300m compensation payments, BT has also been fined another £300,000 due to failing to provide accurate as well as complete information under the Communications Act 2003.

Finally, after all of this, Openreach has said that they have invested in “significant changes” to training, systems and practices for their Ethernet orders in response to its shortfalls.